Connecticut State Police use cell phone record to nab alleged Dunkin Donuts robbers

BANTAM -- A state police investigation, which used cell phone towers in New Hartford to bring down the alleged robbers of a local Dunkin' Donuts, led to the arrest and arraignment of one individual Friday.

Perez, joined by 19-year-old Denny W. Douglas, was arrested after state police were able to use surveillance footage, along with cell phone tower records, to track down the duo and tie them to a Dec. 9, 2011 incident involving breaking into and robbing the Dunkin' Donuts in New Hartford.

Troopers from Troop B in North Canaan were dispatched to reports of a burglary, finding the drive-thru window damaged and three cash registers that had been pried open and the cash removed from them. Three filing cabinets with drawers holding some cash had been removed from a back office, too.

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The store's manager estimated $473 in cash had been stolen altogether, and the building's owner estimated damage costs of about $1,250.

A surveillance video showed a white male with gloves being dropped off by a dark color car in a parking lot just south of Dunkin' Donuts at 1:12 a.m., where he walked up to the drive-thru window and pried it open. The male was also seen on the video prying open the cash registers and filing cabinets.

When the suspect left the store, he made a phone call and the car came back by to pick him up.

Police used the time sequence on the video to retrieve a warrant for call detail reports from AT&T and Verizon towers nearby. A judge in Litchfield Superior Court signed the warrant on Dec. 23. The telecommunication companies said the requests were "outside the normal scope of records retrieval and would require substantial effort to dump the tower information."

On Jan. 17, troopers received the records, and by using the timestamp on the video were able to pin two phone numbers from one of the towers.

State police used the gathered information, along with information supplied by the Manchester Police Department -- where a similar crime had occurred and three men subsequently arrested -- to match the phone numbers with Perez and Douglas. The records show that Perez was the caller, while Douglas was the driver.

The two men were also arrested in connection to similar Dunkin' Donuts burglaries in Vernon and Berlin, Conn.

On Friday, Judge Richard Marano lowered the police-set $75,000 bond to $50,000 cash-surety and Perez will appear again on June 6. He is currently incarcerated.

Douglas is scheduled to appear in Bantam Superior Court next week, facing the same charges.